Calvin College Professor and two-time Newbery Honor recipient Gary D. Schmidt will be coming to Schuler Books & Music, 2660 28th St. SE, to discuss his latest book, the young adult story “Orbiting Jupiter.”
Schmidt will be at the store at 7 p.m. The event will mark the paperback release of the book which earned starred reviews from “School Library Journal,” “Publishers Weekly,” “Booklist” and “Kirkus Reviews” and was named an ALA Notable Book for Children in 2016 as well as cited in the YALSA 2017 Best Fiction for Young Adults list.
In “Orbiting Jupiter,” Schmidt, who is also a National Book Award finalist, delivers the shattering story of Joseph, a father at 13, who has never seen his daughter, Jupiter. After spending time in a juvenile facility, he’s placed with a foster family on a farm in rural Maine. Here Joseph, damaged and withdrawn, mets 12-year-old Jack, who narrates the account of the troubled, passionate teen who wants to find his baby at any cost.
“There is quite a few books out that deal with this sort of relationship with the lost of a child,” Schmidt said in a recent interview. “There is not that many, I think, that deal seriously with a father’s yearning for a young child.
“If there is a message or a theme, I would suppose it would be the power of love and its ability to reach across.”
Schmidt received the Newbery Honor and a Printz Honor for “Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy” and a Newbery Honor for “The Wednesday Wars.” He lives with his family on a 150-year-old farm in Alto.
For more information about this event or other activities, visit Schuler Books & Music’s website, schulerbooks.com.
